We probably have all performed searches that have returned old results when we were looking for current information, this is expected to change that issue quie dramatically.

Here’s a well documented article from DevWebPro that goes into more detail entitled: Google Update Increases Search “Freshness”

If you are looking to take advantage of this new and improved algorithmic shift for your own search results, request a complimentary SEO Analysis Report or call us (610) 768-0357 for more details.

Sometimes it’s difficult for the average business owner to understand the value of organic search engine optimization, but you should realize that by gaining a #1 ranking on Google for a keyword that would drive 5000 new and relevant visitors a month to your website would mean (even at 1% conversion rate) would equal 50 new sales a month! When you multiply this with your average customer value you can determine how much revenue a #1 ranking would produce on just one highly relevant keyword phrase.

To get an idea of how much additional SEO work is needed to compete, below outlines activities by the SEO era. By no means is this an exhaustive list but provides an outline of how SEO has become more involved, more work. There’s more competition than ever before so it takes more work to get that coveted top tanking for your best converting keywords.

Before 2004 SEO consisted of:

Accessibility:

• Crawlability of Wesbite
• Spider-Readable Content
• Search Engine Friendly Navigation/Architecture
• Limiting any Duplicate Content Issues
• On-Page HTML Sitemaps

Keywords

• Basic Keyword Research
• Keyword Targeting for Individual Web Pages
• On-page in-content Text Links

Link Building:

• Reaching out to other webmasters
• Directories
• Blogs and related Sites
• Guestbook and Signature links

Search Verticals:

• Images

From 2004 to 2008 SEO expanded to include the below items in conjunction with the items above.

Accessibility:

• XML Sitemaps
• Quality Content Creation – no thin content
• Rel=Canonical
• Issues with the Nofollow Tag

Keyword Research now includes:

• Keyword Difficulty Analysis
• Keyword Commercial Value
• Keyword Usage in Images
• Keyword Manipulation generally in Footers

Link Building added:

• Social Media Marketing specifically for Link Building
• Press Release and PR Tactics
• Content Syndication
• Badges and Widgets
• Embedded Content
• Guest Blogging
• Article Marketing
• and more

Search Verticals added:

• Local SEO, Maps and Google Places, Bing Local, etc.
• Video
• Shopping
• News

Here is the over all picture in 2011, these SEO activities and responsibilities include:

Site Accessibility

• Developing a website that can be easily crawled and indexed

Market / Keyword Research and Targeting

• Picking and testing the right keywords, knowing they convert via PPC tests, and then employing them effectively for organic search

Content Strategy

• You need a plan on how to leverage your businesses resources to develop useful, valuable, relevant and share-worthy material

Content Creation

• Creation of blog posts, evergreen content, infographics, interactive works, apps, tools, and more

Link Building

• Investigating, tracking and acquiring high quality links

New Search Protocols

• Schema.org, Rel=Author, Video XML Sitemaps and more

Search Verticals

• Images, local, video, news, blogs, social, mobile, product, and more

Community Management

• Creating and participating in conversations around your brand/sector in beneficial ways to drive awareness

Social Media Promotion

• Utilizing Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+1, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, etc., to improve reach and social buzz

Social Network Reach

• Improving the size, depth and breadth of your social networks to reach more potential customers and connections

Reputation Tracking

• Watching your brand’s search results, social media remarks and web content to track success and monitor danger

Local / Maps Optimization

• Optimizing for placement in local search and local portals, both web and social including monitoring local activity

An Organic Web Strategist then would be defined as having many more online marketing responsibilities than the basic or advanced Search Engine Optimizer – as it incorporates many facets of the growing social web. Any business that wants to succeed in the future needs an experienced SEO Company aka organic web strategists to get the results and the ROI that will allow you to continually expand your online marketing efforts.

As people in our increasingly digital world become acclimated to performing more and more of their daily tasks online, they will no doubt expect full functionality from any online business to whom they trust with their patronage.

Put simply: Catch up, or lose customers. It has been well documented by many marketing analysts that customer loyalty for loyalty’s sake is a thing of the past – people can and will always demand the absolute best from the websites with whom they do business.

What exactly does this mean for your website and business?

Your website design is the first impression that a new customer will have of your business, and the first thing that an old customer will compare to the new businesses that they are surely vetting against yours. Not only must your website keep up with the competition, but it must be maintained constantly in order to move with the accelerating tide of business technology.

Put simply: People want their answers now, and if you do not give it to them, someone else surely will.

But how can a full time businessperson run a full time business and have a hope of building and maintaining a modern, great looking, fully functional website without years of IT training or overpaying a professional from your already stressed marketing budget?

The answer: First Place Positioning. Request Website Design Mockup

Unlike other web design companies, First Place Positioning can build your business a fully functional, great looking, completely cutting edge website that you yourself can update as needed. But before we get to the maintenance, let’s take a look at the actual website that First Place Positioning can build for your business.

Full, up to date functionality: A First Place Positioning website comes mobile ready to satisfy the needs of your equally busy clientele who want answers from their smartphones on the go.

Web 2.0 features: Your customer base will be able to interact with your business in nearly any way that you specify, using any multimedia form on the market today.

Information capture: A First Place Positioning website can include an easy to use name capture form, along with other important data capture features.

Most importantly, your website will be completely updateable by you, without the need for a whole lot of technical expertise, extra payroll worries, or being trapped in monthly maintenance payments to any outside third party.

Some of the benefits of having a cutting edge website:

Your website will be automatically linked into the new structure of the Internet, which allows for much more shared content between Internet users. You want your website to not only be optimized for search engines, but also social searches, “likes,” and be the most receptive it can be to acquiring backlinks.

Also, many people are becoming acutely aware of websites that are not custom built. Though it may be simple to build a site from a free compiler, you have to deal with the unprofessional look, the hidden tags, the lengthy URL (which advertises to the world that you are on a free website builder), and you are limited in your options of how to present your business. In order to insure your longevity online, you need a custom built, fully professional website to which all of your affiliate sites can be linked. Feel free to build blogs, online newsletters, and message boards on free sites – if they are popular enough, they can also hit the top spots of search engine rankings. But to drive sales and customer loyalty, the original site must be a cutting edge, web 2.0 experience for the consumer.

Not only do First Place Positioning websites look great, but they are fully prepared to hoist your brand into the top of the search engine results. Your website will be equipped with a social syndication system, which will, as mentioned above, link your site directly into the fabric of the new Internet, in which people can share their “likes” with their friends instantly. However, your website will also give you automatic backlinks every time that your blog posts new content. One way backlinks are the single most important criteria used by the major search engines to determine ranking, and done manually, creating backlinks is an impossibly time consuming process. With your backlinks created automatically, all you have to do is continue to interact with your customer base, and you will be rewarded with increases in your search engine ranking!

The bottom line: People doing business expect the best. Make sure that they know your business is the best and with website design company First Place Positioning, they will . . . with a modern fully-functional interactive social website design.

Contact First Place Positioning to a get a Website Design Mockup Today!

There are many keyword research tools that provide great keyword results and below I will show you an outline of what we use and how we utilize these tools, so you too can uncover the most profitable keywords to target for top ranking and additional content creation.

Most of the keyword tools pull their data right from Google, and others use meta search engine data. Here are a few ways, when combining these strategies, goes a long way to help uncover the whole scope of keyword usage in your market and also allows you to utilize them in a way that achieves higher rankings for many additional keywords you may not have ever thought of using.

Keyword Suggestion Tool:  This keyword tool allows us to input any keyword and get back results that are ‘suggested’ by Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and Amazon which also shows the popularity of the suggested keyword.  You can get 1000′s of results for each main keyword which will create topic/content ideas and additional long-tail keywords to target for quick ranking. This will also uncover new phrases and trend words that may not yet be, by search volume, accurately portrayed in the Google keyword tool.

Wonder Wheel Keyword Tool: This is an amazing keyword tool that returns results based on the Google Wonder Wheel showing related keywords and how Google sees the entire keyword structure nine levels deep!

Keyword Competition Analysis: We can quickly locate all the keywords your competition is targeting and analyze them to see if they are worthy of efforts to gain a top ranking.

Theme/LSI Keywords: This is a tool that provides all the theme words related to a specific keyword phrases entered. It pulls the data from the top 10 Google results and formulates the most used 2, 3, 4 word phrases along with actual ‘theme’ words. When these theme words are used in the content of that specifically targeted keyword page you will be letting Google easily uncover what the page is about and will help that page become more relevant for that specific term your looking for a top ranking. The Theme word analysis also allows for one page to rank for many, many keyword phrases.

After bulk keyword research is performed – those keywords are then analyzed primarily through Market Samurai tabut other sources are used to find the Search Volume, Competition, Adwords CPC, SEO Value, Commercial Intent and much more for each keyword. We then analyze the top 10 competitors for that specific keyword and see how well… or not, that competition is optimized for that phrase. This quickly reveals how much SEO, both on-page and off-page that needs to be done so you eventually out-rank those above you and get into the first place keyword position on Google (Yahoo and Bing).

Although we have used Micro Niche Finder, Niche Finder, Keyword Elite 2.0 and a few other tools, the above keyword tools with descriptions are the ones used most in our process to uncover your best chance keywords for more traffic and sales.

Keyword research is one of the most important first steps to take when working on website visibility and optimization.  Performing keyword research with various tools and strategies can take a good deal of time especially when digging deep and sorting the absolute best phases to target.  Prioritizing the keywords in a way that drives traffic quickly and steadily but significantly improves over time. It can be wise to stay on top of the trends in your market and dominate any newly used words with high traffic.

Hope this has helped shine a little light on acquiring and using keywords in a different way that gets better results.

Get a Full Keyword Discovery Report for your Market

You can get free SEO reports from a few good sources online each covering varying SEO factors and other web optimization issues.

Below are a list of things that can be done, checked and modified for better SEO and increased visibility in Google’s search engine results.

Take into consideration:

The time it takes to load your site, or site load time – this has become an important factor to Google.

How many current visitors your website is receiving – a catch-22 – the more visitors the better your site will do in Google (more on how to get plenty of visitors to your site).

You should know how many web pages you have Google’s index versus how many actual pages you have.
You can do a “site:domain.com” to see all your pages in Google and also do a  “site:domain.com keyword”
This asks Google to show all the pages in your web site, in their order of importance that relate best to that keyword and theme.  The page that is listed in the first place position for that keyword should be the page and keyword you are optimizing for, or your homepage.

Your site should declare the language and the proper Doctype.

Text to Code Ratio

You should use compelling and keyword rich Title tags, Description tags, 66 and 154 characters respectively.

Your Robots.txt file should block all folders that do not need indexing, this will help speed up the bots which will then be able to spider more of your site and pages quicker increasing the amount of pages in Google’s index.
(Example:)
User-agent:*
Disallow: /images/

A properly developed XML sitemap will also help get a higher indexed page count. I’d recommend using GsiteCrawler to build your own XML sitemap and set priorities.

Is your site Mobile ready with a properly setup micro format?

Have a QR code yet?

A KML file?

Google Verified?

Tracking Visitors with Analytics?

Utilizing Google Places and Webmaster Tools? (Bing webmaster central also)

Is your website valid or close to being valid by W3C standards?

Does your site use either the www  or non-www redirect and not both. If your site shows up for both versions this could be considered duplicate content, a duplicate home page!  Same with http://www.domain.com/index.html.

Is your content truly unique? Any copied or badly re-written content that resembles already established content on another site will really hurt your chances of your site doing well. Duplicate content ON your site is bad. Google looks at the author or the originator of the content, where it is first indexed as the source… you want to be the source of the content you publish.

Heading (H1 and H2 tags being utilized).

Are theme and related keywords being used within the content of the page and main keyword you are targeting? Do you know how to find Theme or LSI keywords?

Are you internal linking your keywords within the content of the site. Google can distinguish what content is in the sidebar, header, footer and content area, this is why it is important to like within your content to other pages in your site.

Page names, or URLs – short and keyword rich, close to the root?

Describe images with image alt text (not real important but every little thing adds up)

Does your site have a Search function and an on-page sitemap?

Usability and Promotions:

Is your current website design and footprint modernized with top notch graphics that provide clear call-to-actions with your phone number prominently displayed and a form to capture emails to build up your email list?  A list is an asset, you can be building one with a free report or special coupon or deal, be creative but provide value.

Are you utilizing a blog to publish new content. Are you syndicating that content out to your social sites automatically?

LINKS LINKS LINKS

Links pointing back to your site with the keyword text your targeting for a top ranking can be the one biggest influence on your ranking. So how do you get more links.  There are old ways which work okay still and other ways that work very well

Make sure your listed in the top directories in your niche, the general directories and even the top paid directories if your serious about competing for top keywords.

Article directory links via author resource box.

Forum commenting with keyword signature text.

Use classified advertising with a twist to stay on top and drive targeted traffic to your site.

RSS Feed submissions – Top Blog directory submissions

The under-utilized Press Release marketing strategy.

SOCIAL MEDIA is HUGE:

Facebook fans, Twitter followers, LinkedIn, YouTube channel, etc., ALL becoming a MUST to stay relevant.

The various channels of social media marketing:

TOP NETWORKS and NETWORKING sites
NEWS STORY
BOOKMARKING
MICRO BLOG
VIDEO, AUDIO, PHOTO
DOCUMENT SHARING (PDF, PPT) aka Scribd
ANSWERS (Ask, Yahoo Answers)
AGGREGATION/SYNDICATION
RSS, PING, WIDGET
SLIDESHOW, WIKI
BLOG CREATION, SITE CREATION

More about Links:

Things to consider when acquiring links…

Anchor text and PageRank of linking site. The age of the link. The number of outgoing links from linking site. Prominence of link placement, early in HTML is better, in-content links are better.

Whether it is Panda or some other future organic Google algorithmic shift update you need to know the real foundation of good SEO to be less affected or even rewarded when major shifts happen.

Can you remember back to some these Google updates, and how well your site did or did not do?

The good ‘ol Big Daddy update
The “False” Update – This was a big update with many changes
Bourbon Update
Allegra Update
Brandy Update
Austin Update
Florida Update
Esmeralda Update
Dominic Update
Cassandra Update
Boston Update

There is a lot to keep up-to-date on, but good foundational SEO will keep you safe and prospering for years to come.

First Place Positioning provides foundational and expert SEO Services, fully-functional easy-to-update SEO Web Design and Development, Social Media Marketing and Syndication and quality Link Building.

First Place Positioning will also SHOW and TELL you everything you need to know, we lay it all out for you, all about SEO and ranking – then you can do it all yourself and dominate your industry and keywords with the knowledge we gained over the 13 years in the SEO industry… we continue to adapt and refine to help our clients stay on top and continue to modify processes and strategies that work like gangbusters!

We will be putting out a free report that expands on the information in this post, just subscribe to our RSS feed and you will be the first to know about the free SEO/SMO Marketing blueprint that you can readily download when available.

If you want a Internet marketing consultation fill out the form to the top or right and we will contact you with a scheduled time.. no obligation and no initial cost… limited availability.

In the meantime, we have new website examples that we can show having no functionality limits whatsoever, making your website the very best it can look and convert! Easily add pages and posts just like using a word processor. Specific pages can have their own design styles for a truly unique website and interactive blog with the very best layout and design style that attracts and converts visitors.

Contact us for more details.

The major search engine Google will display your website at the top of the search engine results when optimized correctly with on-page and off-page factors being fully implemented. There are numerous ways to promote your site with inbound keyword link text which is one of the most essential factors in gaining that coveted top ranking on those keywords that will drive new customers to your site.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, organic natural search engine rankings are the key to the success and growth of your website. Unless you are willing to pay thousands of dollars through PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, organic SEO is the smart businessman’s choice. You can use both PPC and SEO in conjunction with each other or choose just to dominate the organic natural results.

We know that getting a top search engine placement for your best keywords, consist of more than just optimizing the meta tags for each website page. By utilizing white hat techniques and best practices for Google, we’ve found over the years this gives your keywords the most longevity in the top positions. This works for Yahoo! and the Bing major search engines as well, and in the long-term having very little risk of losing favor with these major search engines.

Below are some SEO and promotional tidbits

Domain age plays a role but can be overcome with high quality link building and proper on-page optimization more than ever before.

By analyzing the top ten listing results for your keyword(s) you can uncover the theme words needed to employ in your content to dominate that specific keyword ranking.

Get your web site rank up for your words and watch the sales and leads start flowing into your email box through your opt-in form

Develop off-page keyword links that will result in improved search placement, and optimize in-content links giving more weight to those keyword phrases.

Having an optimized blog that will allow you to add pages and content on a regular basis that will help keep your site fresh and fully indexed by Google. At the same time allow other users to engage if you desire them to, and open up additional blog linking opportunities, RSS feeds and Blog directories to name a couple. You’ll be able to use tags or tagging of your posts, along with trackbacks.

We have all the SEO and site tools necessary to uncover and out-rank your competition on most any term targeted, both nationally if needed and especially locally. By optimizing your Google Places account you can see an immediate jump into the local box of search results for your main keywords.

After so many years in the SEO business we have a mission to give you the most bang for your proverbial buck with our SEO service, one that will rival any competitors SEO service.

We help you select a set of keywords that have an intrinsic SEO value and a high commercial value so the SEO efforts applied will pay off handsomely for your company in the least amount of time.

You will see exact match domain names getting top spots on keyword searches, but once again this can be overcome by out-performing that domain in on-page factors and high quality and high PageRank links back to your web pages.

Marketing online has hundreds of facets that need to be considered for today’s webmaster.

Even now more than ever, the traffic sources available are limitless. SEO can cover the whole gambit of online marketing solutions. Building a list of leads, various submissions, article development, clean HTML code, relevant content, algorithm changes, better crawl rate, topic centered content, competition analysis, social media marketing, etc.

Optimize the organic elements of your website correctly and your site will be visited by the engine’s spider more often.
Directory inclusion

Industry related directories and sites
Paid online directories
Press Releases
Content syndication
Analytics for analysis of visitors click stream.
Check code for compliance
Complete SEO web development from the ground up at a low-cost.
Look for long-term experience from you SEO firm and a guarantee as it relates to more traffic, not necessarily a #1 ranking for a particular keyword.
A fast server
Custom designed Facebook business pages
Custom Twitter backgrounds with auto-following techniques to effectively target the right audience in the right geographic location.
The popularity of your site, based on links will help with search engine rankings when that linking popularity steadily increases over time.
Your site will reach a wider audience get more sales, receive more search traffic.
Get SEO tips and strategies and become a part of the process of getting your site to be a dominate player in your industry.
Your visitors will now take more decisive action.
Assign an author to your blog, allow comments to be considered and make it a more interactive experience for your visitors.
Develop different copy to be published on social media sites
Video usage and optimization
Linking management, maps, media placement, technical insight, and more
Getting conversions is the goal
Time-tested SEO methods, monitor of keyword rankings
High PageRank links
RSS availability
Give searchers what they are looking for
Address on your web pages for local search traffic
Choose the right categories for your business
Register and claim your Google listing
Use the right color scheme for your website
Develop a community from within your site or through the social networks.
Research and reverse-engineer competitors
Improving inbound link profile
The right SEO methodology does indeed get the results.
Proper use of redirects
Stay out of the sandbox!
Site navigation structure should support your main keywords, successfully themed and supported by related terms

You will want to make sure you write your web content for both the users and the search engines, a fine balance which after years of practice is simple to perfect with a little hard work and research of your market keywords and target audience.

Let the world see your webpage in the top positions for your most important keyword phrases if indeed your business deserves this.

Last week I asked one of my staff to create a promotion plan that would make an existing site rank that already ranked for it’s main keyword phrase to also rank for a new keyword phrase, and then submit that plan to me for review. She created a great, comprehensive plan including varying sources of backlinks and social media promotion.

Unfortunately, for raking the site for a new keyword, it wasn’t the most effective plan.
Why?
Her plan was focusing on VOLUME of links. That is, getting tons of links from many sources such as:

• Blog commenting
• Forum posting
• Article submission
• Social media profiles
• Directory submission
• Social bookmarking
• RSS submission
• Blog carnivals

LINK BUILDING FOR VOLUME

Getting a bunch of links from all kinds of sources is an excellent strategy. It’s actually important for a site to have incoming links from several kinds of sites, a topic I wrote about in “Link Mixology – The 12 Kinds of Links Your Site Needs.”

However, this kind of link building is more appropriate for NEW sites.

New sites need some “street cred” in the eyes of the search engines. They need to both look natural and popular.

We create that natural and popular looking link profile by:

1. Building links from a variety of sources and…
2. Varying the anchor text that links back to our site

On a new site, while you might want to rank for the keyword phrase “blue widgets” you certainly wouldn’t want to use “blue widgets” every single time you get a link back to your site. That’s unnatural and is called “over optimization.” It can lead to your site having less than stellar search engine rankings.

Fortunately, since we’re also building links from many sources, our anchor text will naturally vary.

For example, you usually control the anchor text your site gets when submitting to article directories. In these cases, you would use “blue widgets” as your anchor text.

But then you’ll also be incorporating social bookmarking or blog commenting, where your anchor text might be secondary “tags” (in the case of social bookmarking) or your name (in the case of blog commenting).

Aside: Yes, of course you can use your main keyword as anchor text when submitting blog comments, but they often are perceived as spammy and fake when you do so, and are approved less often and deleted more often. Skip the anchor text here, it’s not worth the hassle.

You can see that when you are building links for volume, you achieve variation in backlink sources as well as variation in anchor text.

LINK BUILDING FOR ANCHOR TEXT

Once your site has been established and a variety of backlink types and a variety of anchor texts have been built for it, you may need an extra boost in the search engines to rank for your main keyword phrase or in my case, an additional secondary keyword phrase.

For this, you need to target a specific anchor text. And as such, your link building should be focused primarily on getting links from sources that allow you to control your anchor text.

Article marketing is the most obvious solution and where you’ll likely spend most of your time, as you generally write your own “About The Author” box and include the exact anchor text you’d like.

Article marketing can include traditional article submission (like adding your piece to EzineArticles) as well as submitting your articles to places like Article Marketing Automation, which then distributes your content and chosen anchor text throughout their network of participating blogs.

Another strategy you’ll want to employ while building links for a specific anchor text is using social media sites like Hubpages & Squidoo to post articles and RSS feeds that link back to your site. With these services, you are often in control of your anchor text as well.

HOW TO DECIDE WHICH KIND OF LINK BUILDING YOU NEED

How do you decide if you’ve done “enough” of the “Volume” kind of link building and need to focus on anchor text link building?

Keep in mind this isn’t an exact science but rather a guideline, as on page optimization, domain name, domain age, where your & your competition’s backlinks are coming from, etc. all contribute to a site’s rank.

As a general blueprint, I look at the number of backlinks my competition has and how many of those links use the KW phrase I want to rank for as anchor text. Then I look at my own site’s backlink profile. If my overall number of links is still much lower than my competition, I want more links from varies sources.

If my total number of links is comparable but I’m lacking in links using my main KW phrase as anchor text, I’ll start the process of link building for specific anchor texts.

Which kind of links do you need to build for your site?
SEO Philadelphia Company providing Free SEO Analysis Reports and SEO Website Design services.

Google just dropped a bombshell: Eric Schmidt is out as CEO (as announced in the company’s earinngs report. We’ll be covering the company’s earnings call, which is sure to have more on this.

He will step down from the role starting April 4, and co-founder Larry Page will take charge of Google’s day-to-day operations as CEO. Co-founder Sergey Brin will devote his energy to strategic projects like working on new products.

Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership–all of which are increasingly important given Google’s global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

On the Official Google Blog, Schmidt writes:

When I joined Google in 2001 I never imagined—even in my wildest dreams—that we would get as far, as fast as we have today. Search has quite literally changed people’s lives—increasing the collective sum of the world’s knowledge and revolutionizing advertising in the process. And our emerging businesses—display, Android, YouTube and Chrome—are on fire. Of course, like any successful organization we’ve had our fair share of good luck, but the entire team—now over 24,000 Googlers globally—deserves most of the credit.

And as our results today show, the outlook is bright. But as Google has grown, managing the business has become more complicated. So Larry, Sergey and I have been talking for a long time about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making—and over the holidays we decided now was the right moment to make some changes to the way we are structured.

For the last 10 years, we have all been equally involved in making decisions. This triumvirate approach has real benefits in terms of shared wisdom, and we will continue to discuss the big decisions among the three of us. But we have also agreed to clarify our individual roles so there’s clear responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

Larry will now lead product development and technology strategy, his greatest strengths, and starting from April 4 he will take charge of our day-to-day operations as Google’s Chief Executive Officer. In this new role I know he will merge Google’s technology and business vision brilliantly. I am enormously proud of my last decade as CEO, and I am certain that the next 10 years under Larry will be even better! Larry, in my clear opinion, is ready to lead.

Sergey has decided to devote his time and energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products. His title will be Co-Founder. He’s an innovator and entrepreneur to the core, and this role suits him perfectly.

As Executive Chairman, I will focus wherever I can add the greatest value: externally, on the deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership that are increasingly important given Google’s global reach; and internally as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

We are confident that this focus will serve Google and our users well in the future. Larry, Sergey and I have worked exceptionally closely together for over a decade—and we anticipate working together for a long time to come. As friends, co-workers and computer scientists we have a lot in common, most important of all a profound belief in the potential for technology to make the world a better place. We love Google—our people, our products and most of all the opportunity we have to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

Earlier Schmidt wrote an ineresting post at Harvard Business Review today indicating that Google’s strategic initiatives for the year are all about mobile. He wrote:
First, we must focus on developing the under­lying fast networks (generally called LTE). These will be 8-to-10- mega­bit networks, roughly 10 times what we have today, which will usher in new and creative applications, mostly entertainment and social, for these phone platforms.

Second, we must attend to the development of mobile money. Phones, as we know, are used as banks in many poorer parts of the world—and modern technology means that their use as financial tools can go much further than that.

Third, we want to increase the availability of inexpensive smartphones in the poorest parts of the world. We envision literally a billion people getting inexpensive, browser-based touchscreen phones over the next few years. Can you imagine how this will change their awareness of local and global information and their notion of education? And that will be just the start.

Here’s the full release including the financials (see the balance sheets here):

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – January 20, 2011 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010.

“Q4 marked a terrific end to a stellar year,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. “Our strong performance has been driven by a rapidly growing digital economy, continuous product innovation that benefits both users and advertisers, and by the extraordinary momentum of our newer businesses, such as display and mobile. These results give us the optimism and confidence to invest heavily in future growth — investments that will benefit our users, Google and the wider web.”

In addition, Google has also announced plans to streamline decision making and create clearer lines of responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

• Starting from April 4, Larry Page, Google Co-Founder, will take charge of Google’s day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer.
• Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, will devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products.
• Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership–all of which are increasingly important given Google’s global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

Commenting on these changes, Eric said: “We’ve been talking about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making for a long time. By clarifying our individual roles we’ll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company. In my clear opinion, Larry is ready to lead and I’m excited about working with both him and Sergey for a long time to come.”

Larry said: “Eric has clearly done an outstanding job leading Google for the last decade. The results speak for themselves. There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly. Eric is a tremendous leader and I have learned innumerable lessons from him. His advice and efforts will be invaluable to me as I start in this new role. Google still has such incredible opportunity–we are only at the beginning and I can’t wait to get started.”

Q4 Financial Summary

Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, an increase of 26% compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the fourth quarter of 2010, TAC totaled $2.07 billion, or 25% of advertising revenues.

Google reports operating income, operating margin, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures, as well as free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, are described below and are reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measures in the accompanying financial tables.

• GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.98 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $2.48 billion, or 37% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $3.38 billion, or 40% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $2.76 billion, or 41% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.54 billion, compared to $1.97 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.85 billion, compared to $2.19 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $7.81 on 326 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $6.13 in the fourth quarter of 2009 on 322 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $8.75, compared to $6.79 in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• Non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin exclude the expenses related to stock-based compensation (SBC). Non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS exclude the expenses related to SBC and the related tax benefits. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the charge related to SBC was $396 million, compared to $276 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. The tax benefit related to SBC was $89 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 and $62 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Q4 Financial Highlights

Revenues – Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, representing a 26% increase over fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $6.67 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting TAC.

Google Sites Revenues – Google-owned sites generated revenues of $5.67 billion, or 67% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 28% increase over fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $4.42 billion.

Google Network Revenues – Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.50 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase from fourth quarter 2009 network revenues of $2.04 billion.

International Revenues – Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $4.38 billion, representing 52% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 52% in the third quarter of 2010 and 53% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2010 through the fourth quarter of 2010, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 would have been $201 million lower. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2009 through the fourth quarter of 2010, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 would have been $132 million higher.

• Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $878 million, representing 10% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 12% in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• In the fourth quarter of 2010, we recognized a benefit of $25 million to revenues through our foreign exchange risk management program, compared to $8 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 18% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 11% over the third quarter of 2010.

Cost-Per-Click – Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 5% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 4% over the third quarter of 2010.

TAC – Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, increased to $2.07 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to TAC of $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 25% in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.74 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $333 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Other Cost of Revenues – Other cost of revenues, which is comprised primarily of data center operational expenses, amortization of intangible assets, content acquisition costs as well as credit card processing charges, increased to $877 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $688 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Operating Expenses – Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $2.51 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, or 30% of revenues, compared to $1.78 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, or 27% of revenues.

Stock-Based Compensation (SBC) – In the fourth quarter of 2010, the total charge related to SBC was $396 million, compared to $276 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

We currently estimate SBC charges for grants to employees prior to January 1, 2011 to be approximately $1.6 billion for 2011. This estimate does not include expenses to be recognized related to employee stock awards that are granted after December 31, 2010 or non-employee stock awards that have been or may be granted.

Operating Income – GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.98 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $2.48 billion, or 37% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $3.38 billion, or 40% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $2.76 billion, or 41% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Interest and Other Income, Net – Interest and other income, net increased to $160 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $88 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Income Taxes – Our effective tax rate was 19% for the fourth quarter of 2010.

Net Income – GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.54 billion, compared to $1.97 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income was $2.85 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $2.19 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $7.81 on 326 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $6.13 in the fourth quarter of 2009 on 322 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $8.75, compared to $6.79 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Cash Flow and Capital Expenditures – Net cash provided by operating activities in the fourth quarter of 2010 totaled $3.53 billion, compared to $2.73 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. In the fourth quarter of 2010, capital expenditures were $2.55 billion, which was primarily related to the purchase of our office building in New York City, as well as IT infrastructure investments, including data centers, servers, and networking equipment. Free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. In the fourth quarter of 2010, free cash flow was $981 million.

We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.

A reconciliation of free cash flow to net cash provided by operating activities, the GAAP measure of liquidity, is included at the end of this release.

Cash – As of December 31, 2010, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $35.0 billion.

Headcount – On a worldwide basis, Google employed 24,400 full-time employees as of December 31, 2010, up from 23,331 full-time employees as of September 30, 2010.
WEBCAST AND CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION

A live audio webcast of Google’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2010 earnings release call will be available at http://investor.google.com/webcast.html. The call begins today at 1:30 PM (PT) / 4:30 PM (ET). This press release, the financial tables, as well as other supplemental information including the reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to their nearest comparable GAAP measures, are also available on that site.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include statements regarding our continued investments in our core areas of strategic focus, our expected stock-based compensation charges, and our plans to make significant capital expenditures. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. The potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted include, among others, unforeseen changes in our hiring patterns and our need to expend capital to accommodate the growth of the business, as well as those risks and uncertainties included under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009, and our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2010, which are on file with the SEC, and are available on our investor relations website at investor.google.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Additional information will also be set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, which we expect to file with the SEC in February 2011. All information provided in this release and in the attachments is as of January 20, 2011, and Google undertakes no duty to update this information.
ABOUT NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which statements are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we use the following non-GAAP financial measures: non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP EPS, and free cash flow. The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures, please see the tables captioned “Reconciliations of non-GAAP results of operations measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures” and “Reconciliation from net cash provided by operating activities to free cash flow” included at the end of this release.

We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Our management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding our performance and liquidity by excluding certain expenses and expenditures that may not be indicative of our “recurring core business operating results,” meaning our operating performance excluding not only non-cash charges, such as stock-based compensation, but also discrete cash charges that are infrequent in nature. We believe that both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing our performance and when planning, forecasting, and analyzing future periods. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management’s internal comparisons to our historical performance and liquidity as well as comparisons to our competitors’ operating results. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors both because (1) they allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision making and (2) they are used by our institutional investors and the analyst community to help them analyze the health of our business.

Non-GAAP operating income and operating margin. We define non-GAAP operating income as operating income plus stock-based compensation. Non-GAAP operating margin is defined as non-GAAP operating income divided by revenues. Google considers these non-GAAP financial measures to be useful metrics for management and investors because they exclude the effect of stock-based compensation so that Google’s management and investors can compare Google’s recurring core business operating results over multiple periods. Because of varying available valuation methodologies, subjective assumptions and the variety of award types that companies can use under ASC Topic 718, Google’s management believes that providing a non-GAAP financial measure that excludes stock-based compensation allows investors to make meaningful comparisons between Google’s recurring core business operating results and those of other companies, as well as providing Google’s management with an important tool for financial and operational decision making and for evaluating Google’s own recurring core business operating results over different periods of time. There are a number of limitations related to the use of non-GAAP operating income versus operating income calculated in accordance with GAAP. First, non-GAAP operating income excludes some costs, namely, stock-based compensation, that are recurring. Stock-based compensation has been and will continue to be for the foreseeable future a significant recurring expense in Google’s business. Second, stock-based compensation is an important part of our employees’ compensation and impacts their performance. Third, the components of the costs that we exclude in our calculation of non-GAAP operating income may differ from the components that our peer companies exclude when they report their results of operations. Management compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from non-GAAP operating income and evaluating non-GAAP operating income together with operating income calculated in accordance with GAAP.

Non-GAAP net income and EPS. We define non-GAAP net income as net income plus stock-based compensation less the related tax effects. We define non-GAAP EPS as non-GAAP net income divided by the weighted average outstanding shares, on a fully-diluted basis. We consider these non-GAAP financial measures to be a useful metric for management and investors for the same reasons that Google uses non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin. However, in order to provide a complete picture of our recurring core business operating results, we exclude from non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS the tax effects associated with stock-based compensation. Without excluding these tax effects, investors would only see the gross effect that excluding these expenses had on our operating results. The same limitations described above regarding Google’s use of non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin apply to our use of non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS. Management compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS and evaluating non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS together with net income and EPS calculated in accordance with GAAP.

Free cash flow. We define free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities minus capital expenditures. We consider free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by the business that, after the acquisition of property and equipment, including information technology infrastructure and land and buildings, can be used for strategic opportunities, including investing in our business, making strategic acquisitions, and strengthening the balance sheet. Analysis of free cash flow also facilitates management’s comparisons of our operating results to competitors’ operating results. A limitation of using free cash flow versus the GAAP measure of net cash provided by operating activities as a means for evaluating Google is that free cash flow does not represent the total increase or decrease in the cash balance from operations for the period because it excludes cash used for capital expenditures during the period. Our management compensates for this limitation by providing information about our capital expenditures on the face of the cash flow statement and under the caption “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K. Google has computed free cash flow using the same consistent method from quarter to quarter and year to year.

The accompanying tables have more details on the GAAP financial measures that are most directly comparable to non-GAAP financial measures and the related reconciliations between these financial measures.

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What does all this mean to your visibility on Google. . .